[NFP] POLL: Civilization: historical or fantasy game?

What Civilization game should be like? More or less realistic?

  • As historical as it possibly can. No exceptions!

    Votes: 14 5.2%
  • Historical in general. Some less historical content is ok but NO! to any mythic or SF stuff!

    Votes: 104 38.5%
  • Basically historical, but some fantasy in a game is ok. Even SF and myths don't bother me much

    Votes: 97 35.9%
  • 100% historical with one exception. Fantasy features are ok only in separate small fantasy DLC

    Votes: 29 10.7%
  • Devs can go nuts with fiction. No problem with myths, SF, pop culture if they are well designed

    Votes: 26 9.6%

  • Total voters
    270
and people who do want it have to pay extra? That is not fair to people who like this sort of thing.
Look it's like this: In a restaurant, you get a meal and as a free bonus they gave you a free tomato. There are people who like tomato so they receive it happly but you hate it and complain that you don't want to pay for tomato and demand that they sell it separately.
More like you get a meal at a restaurant and there's a free bonus of blood on the side. Those poor people who have to pay extra for the blood, lol..
 
there's a free bonus of blood on the side. Those poor people who have to pay extra for the blood, lol..
WTF? how is that even a fair compression? Are you saying anyone who likes the concept of vampires are horrible people who love bloodbath? Look you may not like vampires. I get it but there are people who LOVES vampires. No one likes blood on their meal while some may like tomatoes and while some just hates tomatoes. There are people who just DESPISE tomatoes ( like me) so I'd say my comparison was more than fair.
 
The second option down, definitely. I detested Gilgamesh as a leader, along with his faux Sumer, and a lot more things piled on to annoy me for blatant, wonky unrealism and silliness.
 
WTF? how is that even a fair compression? Are you saying anyone who likes the concept of vampires are horrible people who love bloodbath? There are people who just DESPISE tomatoes ( like me) so I'd say my comparison was more than fair.
Lol, I'm just having a bit of fun with where you were going with this. ;)
I personally hate the concept of vampires, and I will never like it or support it, and am thus unhappy about having to have it in my favourite game.
 
I personally hate the concept of vampires, and I will never like it or support it, and am thus unhappy about having to have it in my favourite game.
stop thinking about just yourself but think about others as well. Is it fair to make people who like Vampires to pay extra? If you don't like it ignore it. Like people who receive tomatoes. I would ignore tomatoes if it came free with a meal.
 
stop thinking about just yourself but think about others as well. Is it fair to make people who like Vampires to pay extra? If you don't like it ignore it. Like people who receive tomatoes. I would ignore tomatoes if it came free with a meal.
Chill man, it's ok not to like vampires, lol. At any rate, this game has never had vampires in it before, so this additional content comes as a surprise to many. If the game was to carry on without vampires (as we all had previously expected), it would be no loss to the game by any means, but adding them is like adding a stain to it that not everyone will find fun, but plenty of people will find uncomfortable (do you think about those people? Or don't they count when thinking about others?), and it's the sort of thing that could potentially up the game's rating (the whole cannibalism/occult/supernatural themes can do that)...Keeping the content separate makes everyone happy and is the best way to go about this for the larger audience: Those of us who are uncomfortable with vampires don't have to bother with it, and those who want vampires still have the option to get them if they choose to. It's really up to the Devs anyway how it works out, but separate vampire DLC needn't be expensive (who is going to complain if it's like 30c or something?), and I suppose it could even be free (as long is it doesn't download automatically for anyone who owns the core game..). Considering the negative of it, it's not a big ask for it to be separate DLC than the rest.
 
I agree with Greywulf, in the sense that I don't enjoy the fantasy content. I prefer Civ to be an alternate history game within the frame that it's still the same humans, animals and plants that inhabit the alternate world. But it's of course open for everyone decide where to draw the line as the game is supposed to play out an alternate history given new circumstances (terrain, neighbours, climate, ...), so why not throw in some vampires, some aliens or maybe mithril and reptile conspiracy?
It's obviously up to the devs to decide which direction to take the game and my assumption is that since they are adding more and more fantasy-features in, they get generally good feedback from the community on it. Can't blame them for trying to convert their dev-time to revenue.
For me, since I'm not enjoying half of the features I pay for, I might not get the next DLC/pack. To use the restaurant analogy - if a restaurant fill half my plate with food I don't like I might think it's too expensive and find a new place.
 
Late to the discussion. Even if I was one of the first voters, I hadn't time to write an opinion, as it is a difficult subject with a lot of gray zones. Even I think none of the options on the poll convince me exactly. I voted for the second, but it might as well be the third, and none of them. I'm OK with SCI/fantasy stuff, but NOT with a lot of SCI/fantasy stuff, as the game core is, in certain sense, historical (more on that latter). So, I'm OK with the Vampires addition in Secret Societies, or with the Gun Deployment Rig :rolleyes:, but if they start to clutter too much the game, I would find them not OK.

So, back into the "civ is a Historical game" statement: for all that I've experienced since Civ 1, civ is historical-based, but not hardcore historical. It is not a history simulator, but a board game that takes is ambience in the world history (and, dare to say, the world... errr, I meant, pop world history). Even if in lates games we have welcome additions to not-so-well-known cultures and parts of the history, Civ keeps taking a light approach to history, bending it as it is needed for gameplay and fun. So you can have Caesar offering you salad, or Ghandi congratulating you for your nukes. This is not historic either, as Vampires are not, or as building Macchu Picchu in Angkor Wat and Angkor Wat in Macchu Picchu is not (Am I the only one who has this OCD regarding wonders with city names (or cities with wonder names)? :nono:).

So, what makes a "fantasy" addition real. That in some sense, it could tie to certain real-world schemas. Religion bonuses (I've discussed this a lot here, as some could consider these "fantasy" as well) are a mechanic to identify the things the followers or organization of a religion are good at (so, if you believe in a god of the hunt, you're likely to hunt more, and get better at that). GDR are something that google could build some day, maybe it takes 50 years or 100, but future is unpredictable (take note we have now better "intercom" devices that the ones in most spaceship fictions). And vampires: as some other pointed out, even if the mytical vampire does not exist, they are a quite good meme to represent all warrior societies that believed in absorbing the enemies "soul" to get stronger. So it's fine with them.
 
and people who do want it have to pay extra? That is not fair to people who like this sort of thing.
Look it's like this: In a restaurant, you get a meal and as a free bonus they gave you a free tomato. There are people who like tomato so they receive it happly but you hate it and complain that you don't want to pay for tomato and demand that they sell it separately.

In this case, it's more like you pay for an eight course meal. In your scenario, you know the main dish for the first two courses, but other than that all you know is you're getting free vegetables with the first dish, free vegetables with the second, free fruit with the third. You find out ten minutes before you eat that your first-course vegetable is a bowl of sliced tomatoes. You hate tomato, but you paid for the steak, you can take it or leave it. You learn about your second course veggie five minutes before they serve it. It's a piece of lettuce with a dab of mayonnaise. But you paid for the sausage, so take it or leave it, it's your free vegetable.
After eight courses you may have only had three side dishes, but you paid for the meat, right? Even if you didn't like any of the side dishes, they were free.

Actually, you paid for an eight course meal, not just the meat. If you were only interested or liked some of the side dishes, you should have the right to your opinion. I didn't pay for only DLCs, I paid for all content coming out over the next year, with the faith I would enjoy most of it, since I don't know two thirds of what I've paid for yet. I would like to see a little more realism in Civ personally, so outside of two the three new civs, I've been disappointed (GC should be nerfed, but that's another thread). It's hard for me to immerse myself in a historical game that has vampires and sudden random comets, even if I like the premise of the secret society. I want Civilization to be an alternate history of ancient Mongolia standing the test of time, not creating a new history of Egypt while secretly using vampires to fight Cthulhu until all the smog causes my planet to become fatally attracted to small moons. I deal with the GDR, even though realistically functional war mechs are a little far fetched.

Saying this, I voted for the second, mainly historical, but not having the SF or fantasy. I can rationalize having 6000 years of Canadian culture, or the religious combat being thunderbolts of theological wisdom your missionaries are hurling, or that humans might suddenly send people to Alpha Centauri at light speed just 10 years after finally reaching Mars. When it veers to aliens and vampires in Civ, I can't.
 
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And vampires: as some other pointed out, even if the mytical vampire does not exist, they are a quite good meme to represent all warrior societies that believed in absorbing the enemies "soul" to get stronger. So it's fine with them.
It is kinda like Maori concept of Mana as they believed eating the enemy would deliver enemy's greater mana to them.
 
Vlad the Impaler wasn't a vampire, though. He may play an influential role in what vampires mean today, but he was a real historical person who was more known for how incredibly brutal he was with his own citizens.
That's how I choose to see the Sanguine Pact Secret Society. I don't picture them as fantasy vampires because they don't actually look like that at all in the real game.
There's obviously historical inspiration in the design with the castles and him using an assassin's blade.
I agree that probably naming the unit vampire and the infrastructure vampire castle is too much for people and they can probably be easily changed.
 
I think civ is a historical game, but not a historically accurate game (big difference). Caveman Abraham Lincoln and punk rocker Joan of Arc fit into this mold, but wizards and vampires do not. In a quarantined off game mode I do not care, however.

I am a bit disappointed in the vampires to be honest, I think exactly the same gameplay could have been achieved with an assassins/thieves guild. The second most fantastical society seems to be the Cthulhu cultists, but they don't seem to be able to ACTUALLY summon a great old one, so there is level of plausible deniability that they're all just imagining it, and nothing magical is going on.
 
The second most fantastical society seems to be the Cthulhu cultists, but they don't seem to be able to ACTUALLY summon a great old one, so there is level of plausible deniability that they're all just imagining it, and nothing magical is going on.
Or they are not even worshiping Cthuhlu but only using its image as a representation of dark cults. After all apart from that pic I don't think the game even mentions Cthulhu... So it can be other cults. Who knows maybe they are summoning Unicron!
 
I am a bit disappointed in the vampires to be honest, I think exactly the same gameplay could have been achieved with an assassins/thieves guild. The second most fantastical society seems to be the Cthulhu cultists, but they don't seem to be able to ACTUALLY summon a great old one, so there is level of plausible deniability that they're all just imagining it, and nothing magical is going on.
I'm in agreement that I wouldn't want to see them a spawning Cthulhu unit either. The idea of a religious cult in the game is cool nonetheless.
As for vampires I'm okay with them considering they don't appear to look like fantasy vampires at all but just brutal assassins which can be considered "vampire" like. I'd like to know more about there bonuses before I make final judgements.
 
Or they are not even worshiping Cthuhlu but only using its image as a representation of dark cults. After all apart from that pic I don't think the game even mentions Cthulhu... So it can be other cults. Who knows maybe they are summoning Unicron!

The video showed a relic named after Nyarlathotep, which is as deep in the Cthulhu mythos as you can get.
 
The video showed a relic named after Nyarlathotep, which is as deep in the Cthulhu mythos as you can get.
hmmm maybe the relic created by cultists have names from Cthulhu mythos...
I have no problems with that... it is nothing but a name. I can imagine it as mean something else.
( granted I have almost zero knowledge of Cthulhu myths...)
 
hmmm maybe the relic created by cultists have names from Cthulhu mythos...
I have no problems with that... it is nothing but a name. I can imagine it as mean something else.
( granted I have almost zero knowledge of Cthulhu myths...)
Well it has tentacles. :p
I really know nothing of the Cthulhu mythos either but I assumed it did. Still it doesn't bother me either considering there are other relics that we don't know if they actually exist in the game.
 
In a game where leaders are immortal, armies can turn into boats, trade routes generate yields out of thin air without actual trade, debates result in lightning bolts, and a tribal village know the secrets of nuclear fission, i don't mind a bit of fantasy here and there. Most of the game still has strong historical flavor.
I'd play PDX games if i want pure alt-history with less abstraction.
 
In a game where leaders are immortal, armies can turn into boats, trade routes generate yields out of thin air without actual trade, debates result in lightning bolts, and a tribal village know the secrets of nuclear fission, i don't mind a bit of fantasy here and there. Most of the game still has strong historical flavor.
That's only because nobody has met a tribal village that actually knows the secrets of nuclear fission. :p
 
I prefer a historically based Civilization where the components are based on historical facts, but the game and player can go in non historical directions.
While I can’t stand GDRs, I want to conquer the world as Robert the Bruce.

Unfortunately, money will determine the direction Civilization will take. If adding
monsters, wizards and aliens will sell more units, then I’m afraid that is what we’ll get. While I would love to see more historical scenarios like WWII, Napoleon’s campaigns and the Civil War plus more military units, I fear that Firaxis will always keep trying to broaden their market by trying to please everyone and thus please no one especially me.
 
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